The Comeback(16)

“Wow, you’re fourteen years old, and you already bought your parents a house. How does that feel?” he said, and he was so close that I could see the makeup clinging to his wrinkles.

I paused for a moment and looked out at my parents again. My mom was smiling and my dad was leaning forward with tears in his eyes. I could see Able sitting a few seats down from them, too, his eyes trained on me. I flashed him a quick smile before turning back to the host.

“I mean, the house is in Anaheim,” I said, deadpan. “It’s kind of the armpit of California.”

The crowd roared with laughter as the host pretended to be horrified. I followed my words with another giggle and instinctively checked whether Able was pleased with my response. He nodded once and I felt invincible.

When the Q and A ended, the girls from school came running over, bubbling with excitement and asking me endless, inane questions about various things I had ascribed no importance to, like how long it had taken to braid my hair for the event, and whether the male assassin was as cute up close as he appeared onstage. While they were talking I felt a vague disappointment, as if I’d worked myself up for a battle that wasn’t worth it in the end.

I left the event flanked by my parents and Esme, and the fans waiting outside went wild for me all over again. My dad had located the car and was already opening the door when my mom grabbed my arm and leaned in close to me.

“Wait,” she said, her breath warm and slightly sour from the champagne. “Just wait a moment, Grace.”

She pointed to the crowd, and I understood what she meant. My mom wanted me to stop and take everything in, to preserve the moment and store it somewhere so that I could look back on it when I was old and no longer beautiful, and perhaps had forgotten what it felt like to be loved by people I’d never met. So I stopped, my arm still interlaced with hers, and we gazed out at the crowd together. Goose bumps traveled up my arms as I tried my hardest to absorb every tiny thing about the moment. It was the first time I could remember seeing my mother this proud of me, and now all of these strangers seemed to want to love me too. I smiled and waved at them, and their voices only got louder.

When we eventually got into the car to go home, the sound of the fans’ chanting still ringing in my ears, I finally figured out what it was they had been saying all along:

Grace Turner, Grace Turner, Grace Turner.

They shouted it so many times that it had morphed into something else entirely.





CHAPTER TWELVE





When Dylan comes back from work, Wren and I are sitting next to each other on the sofa, sharing a bottle of red wine and watching Scarface. Wren knows all the words and has been murmuring along with Al Pacino the whole way through. Dylan stands in the doorway with his hands by his sides, looking between the two of us.

“Grace? Can I speak with you in the kitchen?”

Wren’s eyes remain fixed on the TV. I wonder if she really doesn’t realize how weird this is or if she’s trying to show Dylan how cool she can be with the situation. Either way, I figure she doesn’t know what it is to hurt or be hurt yet.

Dylan leans on the island, shaking his head slowly.

“So you’re drinking again.”

“Well, I was until you came back,” I say, rolling my eyes, but he doesn’t smile and I instantly regret it.

“Half a glass of red wine, Dylan. It’s not a big deal.”

“Addiction isn’t something you can dip in and out of. It’s all a big deal. Wren shouldn’t have been drinking in front of you.”

I forgot he’d started going to the Nar-Anon family meetings before I left. Being back here, I can remember what it felt like to have the weight of his expectation crushing me every day. There are an infinite number of things that are better than knowing exactly when you’re falling short of someone’s expectations and still being unable to stop it. Toward the end I think I did it on purpose, just so we’d both have a reason to feel as bad as we did.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I climb onto one of the breakfast stools and rest my chin in my hand. My blood is already warm from the wine, and I don’t want to admit it but I already feel calmer, steadier. I study Dylan’s face, taking advantage of the fact that he can’t seem to look directly at me. He nods, his face tight as he stares down at his hands.

“I don’t know if I was ever addicted to any of it. It just seemed easier to say than admitting that I actually liked forgetting who I was for a few hours.”

“That’s still destructive,” he counters. “Using it to forget who you are.”

“I don’t know, it’s actually been one of the higher functioning relationships in my life,” I say, immediately regretting my choice of words.

“Grace,” he says, and suddenly my chest hurts.

“Fine,” I say, pushing the glass toward him. I make a mental note to hide the bottle of Percocet somewhere other than just under my pillow. Dylan was there when I was first prescribed the pills following a subtle tweak to my nose (a finessing more than anything), but he never knew how many times I’d topped up my prescription since then.

“Don’t just do it for me though,” he says, visibly relieved. Laurel used to call him Dylan the Saint, and he’s still the only person I know who never even has to try to do the right thing, it just comes naturally to him. I look over his head, at the fridge where five colorful stick drawings of Wren are pinned up with magnets. Dylan is pretending he’s already built the big, perfect family just like the one he left behind.